copartner
(kəʊˈpɑːtnə(r))
Also 6 copertyner, -pertener, -partener.
[f. co- + partner: cf. coparcener.]
1. One who shares or takes part with others in any business, office, enterprise, or common interest; a fellow-partner, associate, accomplice. (Formerly = coparcener.)
| 1503 Hawes Examp. Virt. vii. 148 And you of hym shall be copertyners. 1532 More Confut. Barnes viii. Wks. 804/2 Felowes and coparteners with the holye aungels in the euerlasting inheritance. 1586 T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. i. (1589) 34 He was led prisoner, for being a copartner in the conspiracie of Caius Gracchus. 1634 Sir T. Herbert Trav. 74 Joying little to be copartners with Infidels. 1667 Milton P.L. i. 265 Th' associates and co⁓partners of our loss. a 1711 Ken Hymnotheo Poet. Wks. 1721 III. 127 Their co-partner in Delight. 1726 Amherst Terræ Fil. iv. 18, I do not find, that, in this particular depredation he had any co-partners or accomplices. 1862 J. Spence Amer. Union 66 A copartner in that sovereignty of the people. |
2. transf. of things.
| 1581 Mulcaster Positions vi. (1887) 40 The soule and bodie being copartners in good and ill. c 1630 Drummond of Hawthornden Poems 145 Hills, Dales, and Caves, Copartners of their Woe. 1634 T. Johnson tr. Parey's Chirurg. vi. xii. (1678) 128 The first [muscle]..together with its Co-partner draws it [the tongue] upwards. |
† 3. A fellow; an equal; a match. Obs.
| 1591 Lyly Sappho i. ii. 162 Sapho for vertue hath no co⁓partner. 1660 Hickeringill Jamaica 37 Without a Co⁓partner, or any Parallel in any other Settlements. |